Why celebrities adverts for diet aids should be banned
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In the modern world, there is no denying the power of the celebrity. A Love Island star can upload a photo of themselves in a dress and watch it sell out overnight, Kylie Jenner almost cancelled Snapchat with a single tweet, and marketing companies are spending more and more on celebrity endorsements and influencers each year.
The influencing power of celebrities is fine when they’re using it to push a new pair of shoes or a must-have bag, and I will freely hold my hands up and admit that there’s a dress in my wardrobe that I only own because it looked really nice on Binky Felstead’s Instagram story. Celebrity marketing is great in a lot of ways, however, the ability to influence thousands of people with a single post can easily become dangerous.
This week, the NHS’s leading doctor, Professor Stephen Powis, has called for a ban on celebrities advertising diet aids because of the damaging effect that they have on young people. This includes appetite suppressants, cleanses, shakes and slimming pills, the likes of which have been endorsed in the past by several Kardashians, Vicky Pattison
In January, Kim Kardashian West uploaded a picture of herself sipping a Flat Tummy Co. meal replacement shake, claiming that they were “helping her to get her tummy back to flat” after Christmas. She also shared a discount code for the brand, encouraging girls to “start 2019 off right” and check them out.
For anybody that does not understand why that might be problematic, let's remember that Kim Kardashian has 126 million followers. That is 126 million people who will see her in her bathroom holding a shaker, looking like some impossibly toned goddess, and associate it with skipping dinner for a shake. If that wasn't scary enough, according to Moju statistics, approximately 58% of Kim's following is made up of females aged 13 to 24. This means that by uploading this one single image to Instagram, Kim Kardashian has potentially reached 73 million young girls, many of whom are already facing a huge amount of pressure to look a certain way. On the one- Article continues below...
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